PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Steven Soderbergh, Gary Oldman and Meryl Streep, director and actors of the film The Laundromat.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

We all know about the Panama papers but not many of us know how much this issue and the existence of off shore “shell” companies can touch and affect each one of us. Steven Soderbergh found the right way to make everyone aware of that with The Laundromat, in competition at the 76th Venice Film Festival. With Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman playing both narrators and Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, experts in the seductive ways shell companies and offshore accounts help the rich and powerful prosper, Soderbergh counts on Meryl Streep to close the circle and deliver a very balanced tale of comedy and drama. The actors describe the fun and the pleasure in working with such a great director like Steven Soderberg.

The Laundromat: When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin begins investigating a fake insurance policy, only to find herself down a rabbit hole of questionable dealings that can be linked to a Panama City law firm and its vested interest in helping the world’s wealthiest citizens amass even larger fortunes. The charming—and very well-dressed—founding partners Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca are experts in the seductive ways shell companies and offshore accounts help the rich and powerful prosper. They are about to show us that Ellen’s predicament only hints at the tax evasion, bribery and other illicit absurdities that the super wealthy indulge in to support the world’s corrupt financial system. Zipping through a kaleidoscope of comic detours in China, Mexico, Africa (via Los Angeles) and the Caribbean en route to 2016’s Panama papers incident – where journalists leaked the secret, encrypted documents of Mossack Fonseca’s high- profile patrons – this film is adapted from Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jake Bernstein.